Review: Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea I & II

Spoiler notice: The time-fuckery that you will read will be similar, almost exact, to the time-fuckery you will experience in game. Viewer discretion is advised.

If you are reading this (I know you are, don’t lie), I need your help. I need you to find the nearest earth threatening catastrophe and wait there until you hear the sound of someone wheezing. A bright blue police box will appear and a man will come out of this contraption. Upon further inspection, the box will be bigger on the inside. He will say that he is here to save the day. I want you politely ask him to hold on for a moment ask him to explain the “Burial at Sea” saga for Bioshock Infinite. Considering the vehicle that you just saw this gentleman appear from, you can safely assume the he knows what you are talking about.

If the next words out of his mouth are “timey” and “whimey”, followed by “stuff”, then you have the best description that you will probably get about this game’s timeline or time…squiggly. I don’t even know anymore. I know damn well it isn’t a straight line.

I played “Bioshock Infinite” twice. Once, regularly like an average joe and I had a pretty good time of it. The second time I played was not so friendly. A friend of mine told me that there is a trophy for the game if you complete it on “1999 Mode” without using an vending machines. For clarification purposes, “1999 Mode” is like hardcore, balls to the wall, “You had better not use all your Eve now or you’ll be sorry mode” without lube. I wanted to get this trophy. I really did. I thought I was ready. I thought my body was ready.

My body wasn’t ready.

Needless to say, I am still working on it. But back to the time fuck that is “Burial at Sea”.

For Episode One, you play as everyone’s favorite hero, anti-hero, savior, detective, drunk, father figure….whatever. He was a lot of things in this game without the DLC and we can just add this to the list of things that I want to be properly defined; like a character’s fucking role.

The game opens up and you’re in Rapture, Andrew Ryan’s empire under the sea. (Singing sea creatures sold separately) You see Elisabeth, your tear-making friend from the last game, with an extra batch of sexy this time around. You can google cosplays of her along with…other things. (The Start Button Review is not responsible for images you find using google)Though given the way the last game went, I don’t know if you could call her your friend. Maybe she’s your child..I think.

Wow. So much headache. Such confuse.

Anyhoof, she asks you to help her with a job to recover a child that was lost here. I remember the Bioshock games before this one and it is everything but child-friendly. Long story short, children get harvested. Just think about that.

To compare with Bioshock Infinite, the combat is similar but with a stronger emphasis on stealth. You can insta-kill an enemy at full health. Just don’t try that shit on a Big Daddy. He will wreck you inside out.

During the course of the first episode, you learn that Elizabeth is looking for a girl named Sally who is actually a little sister; the little children I mentioned to you later about being harvested. “Booker” tries to reason with the girl but gets attacked by her Big Daddy (The quotations marks will be explained later. Bear with me..). “Booker” and Elizabeth kill the Big Daddy and, again, “Booker” tries to reason with the girl to come with them while pulling her girl from a vent but his flashbacks of his previous life come back.

Yes, flashbacks. Oh? Did I throw that at you from nowhere? I’m sorry. But the confusion only gets worse.

It actually turns out that Booker isn’t really Booker but Comstock from the Bioshock: Infinite series but not that Comstock. Its a different Comstock from an alternate timeline who tried to steal Booker’s daughter and killed her while fighting with Booker on the other end of a portal that closed up around her head instead of around her pinky like the Elizabeth from the other timeline.

Did you get all that? I hope so, because I don’t think I can/want to explain it again.

The next episode is a little nicer to us as it starts us as Elizabeth, walking through Paris. It is a lovely day where everybody knows your (french) name. Everyone is happy and smiling until you see Sally. You call after this kid, chasing her, and everything in your bright little baguette filled world goes dark. Like Ash Ketchum turning his cap around, shit just got real.

After another failed attempt to get this girl, you are caught by Atlas, the asshole from the original series. He threatens to put a nice pretty hole in your face but, by some miraculous and Twilight Zone-y chance of fate, Booker (not Comstock Booker but actual Booker) helps you out – from your subconscious – and guides you with just enough info so you don’t get killed.

While trying to keep your promise to Atlas that you will find Suchong (again, from the original game), Elizabeth finds her dead body. I hope that you didn’t expect to have ANY of the old powers that you used to help Booker because that bathysphere has submerged. You are just a normal everyday girl. Except take out the normal part and add “I can talk to the dead friend that I and all the other time parts of me killed” everyday girl. You have no tear powers or anything. Fight just like everyone else, but worse. Big Daddy’s will still fuck you up except you can’t even kill them.

Throughout the whole thing, you finally find what Atlas wanted, which was the “Ace in the Hole”. It just turns out to be the same phrase made ever so popular from the first Bioshock game; “Would you kindly?”

..really?

I went through hell waiting for this epic thing (I didn’t even know what it was) just for it be that same damn phrase said by Ryan before I killed him with a golf club. Sorry, that was incorrect. It was HIS golf club that he gave me.

I can’t even understand the damn game well enough to even enjoy that because now I want to know who the fat-fiddly-fuck was the person from the first game that the phrase was used on. And I swear to Celestia, if you tell me later that was an alternate Booker, from another timeline except this Booker was a milkman on a plane, I will find you.

Honestly, aside from the time loops and the lack of understanding I suffered with the game it wasn’t bad. I guess if I were to put a monetary value on my frustration and waiting, then I guess it was worth the money. If you want a time-headache or closure with the series, get the DLC and try to explain it to me.

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0 thoughts on “Review: Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea I & II”

The mind controlled guy (Jack) was booker from that timeline, the booker you play as in part 1 was booker from an alternate timeline. remember he “fled” from his timeline. The phrase was very important since Fontaine never had a hand in the mind control of Jack.